Sci-Fi vs Physics

[DocMoriartty]

Ok here is the ultimate contest. No holds barred let see who wins.

Pit any sci-fi show vs the laws of physics and see which show comes across as the winner, or if not winner who at least gets mangled the least.

Star Trek gets bloodied beyond description by technobabble that defies physics with bad terminology left and right.

Star Wars gets bloodied almsot as badly for starfighters that fly through space like the are fighter planes in an atmosphere.

In my opinion the winner here is Babylon 5. While it too suffers in some areas at least it gets some of the basics right. Starfighters and Cap ships actually operate in space like they are in a real vacuum.

Opinions? Contradictions?

[Stormbringer]

In my opinion the winner here is Babylon 5. While it too suffers in some areas at least it gets some of the basics right. Starfighters and Cap ships actually operate in space like they are in a real vacuum.

Hyperspace and time travel and gravitational drive on ships. All of them pretty much spit on physics as we know them. They get some of the physics right but not all. Granted they did maintain coherence better than most but it's not really any more realistic.


The absolute worst has got to be the movie of Starship Troopers. FTL bug farts, earth to orbit bug farts that couldn't make escape velocity, realspace FTL, asteroids with the gravity of large planets, sonic weapons in space. They've also got a mile long list of offenses against other branches of science as well.

[ClaysGhost]

Ok here is the ultimate contest. No holds barred let see who wins.

Pit any sci-fi show vs the laws of physics and see which show comes across as the winner, or if not winner who at least gets mangled the least.

Star Trek gets bloodied beyond description by technobabble that defies physics with bad terminology left and right.

Star Wars gets bloodied almsot as badly for starfighters that fly through space like the are fighter planes in an atmosphere.

In my opinion the winner here is Babylon 5. While it too suffers in some areas at least it gets some of the basics right. Starfighters and Cap ships actually operate in space like they are in a real vacuum.

Opinions? Contradictions?

They all die horribly. After all, B5 has sound in space, visible energy beams, etc, just like the rest.

[Wicked Pilot]

Stargate Sg-1.

Use of wormhole. Very little space travel to cause problems.

Very little technobabble. Col O'Neil usually stops technobabble before it takes off.

Mostly real world weapons are used.

Not perfect mind you, but good.

Anything else?

[Darth Wong]

Ok here is the ultimate contest. No holds barred let see who wins.

Pit any sci-fi show vs the laws of physics and see which show comes across as the winner, or if not winner who at least gets mangled the least.

Star Trek gets bloodied beyond description by technobabble that defies physics with bad terminology left and right.

True.

Star Wars gets bloodied almsot as badly for starfighters that fly through space like the are fighter planes in an atmosphere.

Note: that is stupid but it is actually not scientifically ridiculous in the sense that while it is not necessary or even reasonable to do so, you could make a ship which is controlled in such a manner that it appears to act like an aerodynamic plane.

In my opinion the winner here is Babylon 5. While it too suffers in some areas at least it gets some of the basics right. Starfighters and Cap ships actually operate in space like they are in a real vacuum.

Unfortunately, this is one of only two things it gets right (the other being the lethality of megaton-class weapons). The pointless fixed-location spine on B5 itself is silly. The massive acceleration of the entire station from a bomb which wasn't even enough to kill Sinclair behind a blast door was silly. The notion of organic technology being invincibly strong is moronic. The idea of humans eventually evolving into glowing light-balls is beneath stupidity. The idea of the first living organism in the entire galaxy being a FUCKING HUMANOID rather than a sub-cellular organic molecule is so incredibly stupid that words fail me to describe it. B5's realism is overrated.

[Stormbringer]

The idea of the first living organism in the entire galaxy being a FUCKING HUMANOID rather than a sub-cellular organic molecule is so incredibly stupid that words fail me to describe it. B5's realism is overrated.

Just to point this out, Lorien is the first being to achieve itelligence not the first being. A rather substantial difference.

[Sam Or I]

What about 2001/2010? Hmmmm space 1999 did not have sound in space, but then again the moon could not travel like that either? Power Rangers is as realistic as most Sci Fi series though.

[Shadow WarChief]

Also, for further clarification, Lorien isn't actually humanoid, he is one of those glowing balls of energy you pointed out earlier.

[Renewed_Valour1]

It comes down to a slugging match between B5. SG1, and Andromeda to see who has the least physics fibs. Then physics walks in and smites all of them because I think the fibs are at about the same level for each show.

[DocMoriartty]

Star Wars gets bloodied almsot as badly for starfighters that fly through space like the are fighter planes in an atmosphere.

Note: that is stupid but it is actually not scientifically ridiculous in the sense that while it is not necessary or even reasonable to do so, you could make a ship which is controlled in such a manner that it appears to act like an aerodynamic plane.

To do this though would require the placement of engine outlets on sections of the ships that we never see and would remove a great advantage of flying in space. IE the ability to flip a 180 and keep going in the original direction.

In my opinion the winner here is Babylon 5. While it too suffers in some areas at least it gets some of the basics right. Starfighters and Cap ships actually operate in space like they are in a real vacuum.

Unfortunately, this is one of only two things it gets right (the other being the lethality of megaton-class weapons). The pointless fixed-location spine on B5 itself is silly. The massive acceleration of the entire station from a bomb which wasn't even enough to kill Sinclair behind a blast door was silly. The notion of organic technology being invincibly strong is moronic. The idea of humans eventually evolving into glowing light-balls is beneath stupidity. The idea of the first living organism in the entire galaxy being a FUCKING HUMANOID rather than a sub-cellular organic molecule is so incredibly stupid that words fail me to describe it. B5's realism is overrated.[/quote]

The blast door was one scene from the pilot that was later heavily contradicted by the rest of the series. Basically the station is larger than the structures main building material can handle. Being a space station this is less of a problem than a ship so no mythical crap like structural integrity fields.

Really? you base your organic technology statement on what? Bumble bees fly and we still dont know why. If you could learn how to designships that had some from of high strength metal for skin and grew themselves insteah of being built the advantage would be huge.

Wow, I do not remember Lorien ever saying he was the first being ever. I also don't remember him ever dropping pants and trying to "fuck" anyone. So take your pathetic language and shove it. BTW this of course has nothing to do with the topic of physics. So to keep in spirit with this forum and your posting style Mr. Wong, why don't you take your little red herring and shove it up your ass.

[Guest]

Real World Physics win every time, time and time again members of the sci-fi community (mainly trolls) just invent random smart sounding terms to back up meaningless boasts

[Patrick Degan]

For a start, I think we can simply set aside "sound in space" and "visible laser beams" as artistic license to make for exciting TV. Hyperspace, FTL, and energy-field based artificial gravity would fall under suspension of disbelief rules for plot/production convenience.

Leaving that aside:

Star Trek —gets totally dismembered and its bits fed into a meat-grinder. Less so with TOS and with increasing blood-spatter with TNG-onward. They've gotten to the point where they should just simply introduce wizards as starship crew performing incantations and have the Great and Terrible God Cthulhu emerging from a black hole, Dragons of the Abyss, and immense planet-eating mutant stargoats.

Star Wars —has a lot which falls into the realm of engineering impossibility, but not wholesale violation of fundamental principles. Where it's on its weakest ground is in regards to the Force —but even SW admits this to be pure mysticism.

Andromeda —oh, somebody tried to get away from some of the moldier SF cliches and introduce kinetic weaponry for starship combat. Sadly, they subsequently ran it through a secondhand Trek Technobabbolator™ and came up with even goofier inventions than phasers; the Point Singularity Projector weapon springs immediately to mind as example.

Stargate SG1 —wins no points for its giant Secret Decoder Ring of the Gods portal device. And just where do all those teleportation rings which float down from nowhere go when nobody's using them? Also loses points for tying its SF in with the VonDaniken School of Crackpots.

Babylon 5 —wins points on issues related to the fundamental Laws of Motion and Energy, has spacecraft limited to Newtonian inertial frameworks (even the Whitestars), rotational gravity, and has sensible ideas in regards to telepathic beings as the result of deliberate genetic engineering rather than natural evolution and issues in regards to telepaths in society. It loses in terms of having some rather odd ideas regarding evolution (though nowhere near as goofy as Star Trek), organic technology (falling into the standard cliche-level for contemporary SF), and interspecies breeding (though again nowhere near as goofy as Star Trek). There is no teleportation in B5 and no zoo of bullshit quantum particles of the week, nor is the B5 universe littered with bizarre space anomalies which Trek crews seem to stumble upon a lot these days. The show has made its share of scientific and engineering goofs, to be certain. But even its worst goofs are nowhere near as outrageous as starships attacked by sonic weapons in space, cracks in black hole event horizons, deuterium ore, de-evolvo viruses, antiradiation vaccines, or people transfomed into catfish after going ultra-FTL.

Of the aforementioned SF universes, I'd say its Babylon 5 and Star Wars which come off the least scarred. Stargate loses an arm, Andromeda loses both legs, and Star Trek has to be vacuumed off the floor and walls as splattered ground-round.

[Darth Wong]

Note: that is stupid but it is actually not scientifically ridiculous in the sense that while it is not necessary or even reasonable to do so, you could make a ship which is controlled in such a manner that it appears to act like an aerodynamic plane.

To do this though would require the placement of engine outlets on sections of the ships that we never see and would remove a great advantage of flying in space. IE the ability to flip a 180 and keep going in the original direction.

You missed the point: it's stupid, but not scientifically impossible. Proving that it's stupid does not affect the point.

The blast door was one scene from the pilot that was later heavily contradicted by the rest of the series. Basically the station is larger than the structures main building material can handle. Being a space station this is less of a problem than a ship so no mythical crap like structural integrity fields.

Uh, no. The stated mass is so low that the station would contain more mass in AIR than metal. It would require impossibly strong materials, or the dreaded SIF's to function as advertised. And the fact that one scene is "contradicted" by the rest of the series hardly exonerates its realism; contradictions by nature induce more realism problems, since a realistic fictional world does not contradict itself.

Really? you base your organic technology statement on what? Bumble bees fly and we still dont know why. If you could learn how to designships that had some from of high strength metal for skin and grew themselves insteah of being built the advantage would be huge.

Wrong. Organic materials have low atomic numbers, low density, and high chemical reactivity (this is a prerequisite for life). Their strength is feeble; even much-touted examples like spider-silk are actually feeble but flexible, so they can handle a fairly large load when they're stretched to more than 10 times their original length (not too useful for structural members or armour). Their temperature resistance is feeble; we have a huge array of engineering materials which can easily survive temperatures 5 times greater than any organic substance. Their corrosion resistance is feeble; their chemically reactive, porous nature makes them easy to destroy via chemicals, radiation, etc. Please learn some basic chemistry and materials science before you appeal to ignorance in another attempt to defend sci-fi chic.

Wow, I do not remember Lorien ever saying he was the first being ever.

Too bad. That's what he said.

I also don't remember him ever dropping pants and trying to "fuck" anyone. So take your pathetic language and shove it.

Your sanctimonious and irrational style over substance attacks won't fly here, dipshit.

BTW this of course has nothing to do with the topic of physics. So to keep in spirit with this forum and your posting style Mr. Wong, why don't you take your little red herring and shove it up your ass.

Wrong again. Your scientific ignorance does not prove anything, and your use of blatant personal attacks in response to a post made with no malice whatsoever toward you is proof that your veneer of civility is nothing but a facade. In short, fuck off and die, dumbshit. You're too stupid to make any point that can possibly stick other than "oh yeah? You swore!"

Grow the fuck up.

[Stormbringer]

Wow, I do not remember Lorien ever saying he was the first being ever.

Too bad. That's what he said.

The first intelligent being not this first life form over. It's been stated as such in canon sources, so it stands.

[Darth Wong]

The first intelligent being not this first life form over. It's been stated as such in canon sources, so it stands.

Either way, it's equally stupid. Did he make an abrupt leap from amoeba to intelligent humanoid? Of course not; there must have been previous species before him whose intelligence approached that of his own species (what happened to the rest of them, by the way?). It is impossible for any being to declare that he is the first intelligent being unless he pops into existence fully-formed, with no evolutionary ancestors (again, we get into monstrous scientific realism problems).

[Patrick Degan]

Doc, we actually do know how the bumblebee flies, the same way we know how the hummingbird flies and hovers in place. The bumblebee's wings beat fast enough to displace air in sufficent volume to produce lift. The bumblebee also controls its flight by tilting its body and angling its wings. Helicopters are controlled by similar principles.

The bumblebee example does not advance a case for organic technology becoming feasible, much less able to replace manufactured materials, tempered alloys and formulated composite materials and ceramics for heavy engineering and industrial applications.

[oberon]

Really? you base your organic technology statement on what?

How about basic chemistry. Everything biological is formed from glucose, and the hardest something biological can be is no harder than bone.

Bumble bees fly and we still dont know why.

Creationist lie, debunked here and elsewhere (TalkOrigins comes to mind). Anway, a few senior math courses could answer that quandary, if you could take them before you shot your mouth off.

[Wicked Pilot]

Really? you base your organic technology statement on what? Bumble bees fly and we still dont know why.

First of all, yes we do know why. Try to stay current.

Second, whoop-the-fucking-doo! Modern inorganic technology has been used to design craft that have broken the sound barrier, flown non-stop around the world, gone into space, landed men on the moon, put probes on other planets, etc. Just exactly how many of these feats has the bumble bee accomplished? How about not a single fucking one.

Perhaps you should be given the more appropiate title of "DocMoron" for your obvious stupidity and ignorance of science and aerospace engineering.

[Darth Wong]

I predict that DocMoriarty will now whine about our use of foul language and completely ignore all of the above points.

[oberon]

I like WP's point: "whoop-the-fucking doo", what has the bumblebee done? I know empirically that a bumblebee can pace a Breda bus, the slowest in the fleet and can't even fly, going uphill. Not very impressive...

[Stormbringer]

The first intelligent being not this first life form over. It's been stated as such in canon sources, so it stands.

Either way, it's equally stupid. Did he make an abrupt leap from amoeba to intelligent humanoid? Of course not; there must have been previous species before him whose intelligence approached that of his own species (what happened to the rest of them, by the way?). It is impossible for any being to declare that he is the first intelligent being unless he pops into existence fully-formed, with no evolutionary ancestors (again, we get into monstrous scientific realism problems).

Just setting the facts straight. I didn't say it wasn't stupid. Just that it was slightly less stupid than a humanoid popping out first of all the life in the universe.

[Enlightenment]

Again, Lorien was not a humanoid. Lorien was yet another scifi Energy Being<tm> that kindly took on a humanoid form to keep production costs down. Actors are still cheaper than CGI characters.

Patrick Degan: Other than Delenn, did B5 run over the interspecies breeding brainbug? AFIAK it didn't. Bonehead doesn't count here because she went through exactly the kind of heavy-duty bioreengineering that would be necessary for a (deluded or perverted, take your pick) member of one species to breed with a member of another species.


As for which of the well-known scifi universes would survive best in the real world, I'd have to say 2001 by a longshot. B5 would be SOL due to the loss of 'gravetics,' telepathy, and the hyperspace stuff used by the FOs.

[Patrick Degan]

Patrick Degan: Other than Delenn, did B5 run over the interspecies breeding brainbug? AFIAK it didn't. Bonehead doesn't count here because she went through exactly the kind of heavy-duty bioreengineering that would be necessary for a (deluded or perverted, take your pick) member of one species to breed with a member of another species.

You're forgetting about G'Kar's proposition to Lyta Alexander for a "direct mating" as a means to hopefully breed a hybrid Narn/human telepath (though later Na'toth pursued the more viable project of combining genetic material from telepath Alyssa Beldon in "The War Prayer"). And let's face it: even with the alteration of Delenn's physiology by her chrysalis transformation, the chances of a successful mating and impregnation between herself and Sheridan would still be a dicey proposition in reality. More so for any offspring of theirs to be able to successfully father or bear a child in the future.

However, it says something that a lot more consideration was given to this question in Babylon 5 than in Star Trek —which is why I rate their treatment of the theme considerably more realistic than in Trek; in which members of any two species can mate at the drop of a hat and never have to visit their friendly neighbourhood geneticist. At least B5 acknowledged the difficulty involved.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Ok here is the ultimate contest. No holds barred let see who wins.

Pit any sci-fi show vs the laws of physics and see which show comes across as the winner, or if not winner who at least gets mangled the least.

Star Trek gets bloodied beyond description by technobabble that defies physics with bad terminology left and right.

Star Wars gets bloodied almsot as badly for starfighters that fly through space like the are fighter planes in an atmosphere.

In my opinion the winner here is Babylon 5. While it too suffers in some areas at least it gets some of the basics right. Starfighters and Cap ships actually operate in space like they are in a real vacuum.

Opinions? Contradictions?

I'd take a moment to mention Firefly. No sound in space, no visible energy beams. (Just balls of green plasma that cut right through smaller ships,) semi-realistic maneuvering, and troopers using actual weapons. Granted they've still got that artificial gravity thing, but overall, it's a pretty good series, in terms of realism.

[Stormbringer]

Patrick Degan: Other than Delenn, did B5 run over the interspecies breeding brainbug? AFIAK it didn't.

Valen. Though slightly different than Delenn. And they have a time or two mentioned inter species mating. Specifically, G'kar trying to talk Lyta into being a genetic donor (as in have a child of some sort) for Narn telepaths. The same thing with the episode where that rogue teep girl had to choose where to go, same deal as with Lyta. Both cases though involved the same sort massive genetic tinkering.

They've generally stayed away from interspecies dating as well, though some sort of relationship was supposed to have developed between Dureena and Galen.